SAN BENIGNO
By GEOFFREY HOLDSWORTH
FEBRUARY 13th, my diary tells me, is consecrated to San Benigno. I don't know who San l3enigno was, and I have never met anyone who knew, but it is a fine name for a saint, and I will tell you about him if you like. I don't think he was a long-suffering martyr in the time of Diocletian, that hard-working Roman Emperor, who only wanted to assure himself of the loyalty of all his subjects to himself as head of the State. I don't think he was one of those tiresome people who spent half their lives on the tops of pillars, nor that he had ecstatic visions, nor toured Western Europe with staff and begging bowl, haggardly urging men to repentance, orthodoxy or some Crusade or other. Nor do I believe that he went to Cathay, nor the Indies, nor the Empire of Prester John, and forcibly converted the natives of those coun- tries, with whose language he was hardly conversant, metaphorically at least, by hitting them on the head with a mallet.
No, I like to think he was a plump, jolly fellow, with a black beard, and much burned by the sun. He had a house on the edge of a little dreaming town in Provence ; nothing luxurious, of course —after all, he was a saint—but with a terrace kissed by the blessed sunlight and shaded by a trellised vine ; a long, cool dining-room, a stone-flagged kitchen, and a little room where he slept and gtudied the books he loved, The Confessions of Saint Augustine, The Republic of Plato, The High History of the San graal and The Gospel According to St. 7ohn.
He had a garden with flowers, as well as vegetables and fruit- trees and beehives, and under the olives on some rough terraces goats grazed and their little kids frolicked. There were chickens, and soft-eyed rabbits in hutches—oh, all that a man could want— and a vineyard that he pruned and tended himself, till in September, with the help of some of the children of the little town, he made the wine—one of those clean, rosy wines of Provence which put heart into a man but could do himno harm. .Swallows nested under his eaves in spring, and the nightingales sang, morning and evening, among the olives. At high noon in summer you heard the strange whirring sound of the cigale, and the fat, warty little dragons crept along the walls looking for mosquitoes. Yes, it was a happy house for a saint to live in, and worthy of his deep laugh, his great heart and his love for all men, as well as birds and beasts and flowers—the gifts of the good God.
In the kitchen was a huge iron pot, simmering over a fire of olive-wood. Something went into it every day—a handful of beans or the leg of a chicken, some mushrooms or aromatic herbs from the hills, a little wine, a little oil, a head of garlic—aiee! but the smell was good. And to the saint's house every day, when the sun was high and the shadows cool and deep blue, came the ragged and hungry rogues of the place to eat and drink with him. There would be a great plate of the savoury stew for everyone, a hunk of bread and a flagon of the rosy wine. After they had eaten and drunk, and given thanks to the good God, they would sit for a while on the terrace under the shade of the vine, and they would tell him of their troubles and their sins, and San Benigno would admonish them an,d give them good counsel, with a great laugh and a slap on the back, which was best of all.
Then Jean, the shoeblack, would say, perhaps, that he was tired of kneeling in the hard street cleaning the shoes of fine gentlemen, who had nothing to do but to stroll in the town, and whose shoes must be shining like mirrors. "What, man, ungrateful—do you say that the doctor, the notary, the priest have nothing to do? They have far more to do than you, my poor Jean ; much greater cares and sorrows. The doctor hurries to a sick bed, the notary to draw up a will, the priest to some poor soul who is dying. At any hour of the day or night they must answer a summons, should it come. You tire of kneeling—did not Our Lord kneel, Who was greater than all of us, yet had more compassion, more humility? You can slap your brushes against the box, see your ugly face in the shoes you shine—you can be an artist, if you will. And after you have earned a few pence you can loaf in a tavern over a cup of wine. The dust is flying—be off with you ; there will be work waiting for you to do."
Or Blaise, the beggar, who had lost both legs in the wars, would complain of the meanness and callousness of the citizens, who grudged him even a sou, as he sat in a corner of the Grand Place, offering for sale the wooden spoons he made. " Ah, my poor Blaise, your legs were smitten off by the Aragonese, but at least you were in the front of the battle, fighting for our own Count of Provence. And now—you have a cart and a hound to draw you. You have eyes to see the blue hills in the sun, a nose to smell the flowers, and a great mouth—Ma foi, I have never known a greater ; Thank the good God for what remains. And you have hands. I want wooden spoons, to scoop soup into the mouths of you and these other gentlemen of leisure—a dozen of them, and I will pay you two sous a spoon."
When the sun had slanted westward and his friends had gone, San Benigno would go out to work in the kindly earth, and in the cool of the evening he would shut the houses of the goats, the chickens and the rabbits against marauders of the night with his gentle hands. And for supper there would be a bowl of goat's milk, and bread and cheese and honey, and perhaps a handful of dried figs or raisins if it were the season. Then he would light the lamp and read, till it was time for his simple prayers. And so to his bed, and dreams of paradise.
His beard whitened as he grew older, his strong back bowed a little, but he could still tend his flowers and his fruits, his birds and his beasts. If anything, he had more friends than ever, who came to dip their spoons into the iron pot, to listen to his words. Nor did he ever lose his great laugh, which had in it the sunlight of Provence and the beat of the sea on the beaches of the South. Till one day they found him dead in his sleep, a gentle smile about his mouth, his old eyes closed, with their wrinkles made by sun and wind and laughter. They buried him in the cathedral of that old town, and behind his simple coffin marched every man, woman and child of the place—the bishop, great lords and ladies, worthy burgesses, and last, as you may guess, the rogues and vagabonds whom he had loved, and the bright-eyed children who had helped him make the wine.
A few years later, because of the great clamour of the people of Provence, and because his kind heart, his gentleness and his divine laughter became known to all Christendom, the Pope of Rome made him a saint. Ever since that time, pilgrims from all lands have come to the little Southern town of narrow cobbled streets, pansy-eyed children and great tawny cats that sleep in the sun, or flicker sitiftly out of sight. It is said that to pray for a while at the tomb of San Benigno is a sovereign remedy for black humours and melancholy of the spirit, which afflict men in times of trouble and despair.
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